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Sometimes he was grateful when Dick was gone.
Not often, but sometimes and in this moment as he dredged himself out of the dream that wasn’t a dream. Nightwing had been called away on a trip for a few weeks. Maybe more. A favor for an old friend, he had said, and Jason knew not to pry further. They indulged through the evening and in the warm sleepy gold of morning Dick kissed the scar on his brow, said he loved him, and left.
That had been just yesterday. If Dick stayed one more night he might have done it again. Would have. It was a silent understanding between them that Jason had a Problem and he understood that underneath there was the urge to insist that he see someone about it, but Grayson had this compulsion to blame himself when things when things didn’t go right. As if loving him enough could solve everything. It fixed plenty, but it could not fix this.
Sometimes in moments like these he felt too small and like his body was a wounded animal he clumsily handled. The leash slipped his fingers too often. When he was alone it wasn’t a problem but then he wasn’t, and while early on he had warned Dick off, he couldn’t keep it up forever. Or at least he didn’t want to.
Selfish.
Monster.
He wanted to wake up with his brother wound in his arms and his nose buried in dark curls. Calloused fingers meeting smooth skin, tracing out the lines of muscles as they moved and stretched, lips finding the hollow of a throat scented of him like a claim. He wanted to leave his mark in kissing bruises. Instead they came from those same hands that handled so gently when he had control of them. Jason could only imagine how it appeared from below. Dick called him handsome. There was nothing charming in the Pit glow of unseeing eyes in the dark and the feral soldier’s snarl that showed his teeth, nothing beautiful in the tremble of muscled forearms that couldn’t squeeze hard enough when in his dreams he could hear the ringing in his ears and the wet thud of metal bludgeoning his stomach.
The ringing was fading now and he managed to pull himself from sweat-slick sheets, pulling them as he went to strip the bed. He’d worry about washing them in a minute but for now Jason worried about pulling himself together.
Sometimes he was grateful when Dick was gone.
Now he ached for him.
As much as he worried about the harm he could cause, so too did he want so desperately for the calm that came after, soft fingers touching his cheeks and stroking back his hair and lips lingering on the scars that marred his lip and brow and the whisper that comes with it.
Easy. Breathe. I’m okay. We’re okay.
As the water ran and he slid himself under it he wanted selfishly to hear feet on tile and feel the cool rush of air that accompanied the shower door opening for a lean acrobat’s figure to come after him, wanted for arms to wind around his dampened waist and curls to stick to his shoulder, fingers finding his heart and a nestled cheek getting into his head. If not that then when he got out and toweled off he half-hoped to find a black and blue suit ducking under the window of their loft room. Instead Dog wagged hopefully from the foot of the naked mattress and he scratched around her ears before moving on to gathering up the sweat-stained sheets to drag down to the laundry. Down the stairs there should have been a figure flicking from pole to pole, doing hanging crunches from the bars they’d installed all around the open flooring of the warehouse so that the Flying Grayson never had to touch the ground until he wanted to. A little like providing an exercise wheel for a hamster, a thought that Jason smiled to himself at.
In the kitchen there was no one standing there with a mouthful of protein-heavy yogurt to chatter at him as he put eggs on the counter and bread in the toaster. There were no fingers deftly snatching bacon from the plate he slid it onto from a grease-shined spatula.
Throughout the warehouse he could almost see all the afterimages of places where Grayson should have been and something tightened in his chest. Impossible, irrational, all-too-real panic in the thought that this would be all he had. An errant thought laid itself through the wrinkles in his brain and seeped down in rivulets to fill every crevice. Dick was gone. Dick wasn’t coming back. Dick had finally tired of him and couldn’t stand him anymore, he was trying to be a better man but it wasn’t going fast enough and he wasn’t doing well enough, and the way he’d woken this morning stood as a stone testament to that fact. The eldest Robin had come away from his experience all the better for it and Jason came in second and he still clutched at the counters in a panic he couldn’t explain and protected himself from evils that didn’t exist until Dick graciously brought him down from that terrifying peak, and he no longer wanted to do it.
Jason came to himself with a buzz in his pocket and a plate clutched in one hand, a crack having formed where his thumb had pressed it too hard into his palm. They should invest in plastic plates. For now it settles on the counter and he slowly arranges breakfast, flipping slightly burnt bacon next to wobbly fried eggs and draping toast over top as he opens his texts with his free hand.
Two emojis, a kissing face and a blue heart.
A photo, cheekily posed at the edge of a rooftop. Just the corner of an intimidating art deco building, and that’s all he needs to know that it’s close to home.
See you soon, Jaybird.
He texts a photo of his plate back and cracks two more eggs, slipping more bacon into the pan.
I’m not saving you any.